Ferrari Fans Furious Over $1 Million Car Crackup

A red Ferrari Enzo -- one of only 400 made and worth more than $1 million -- broke apart Tuesday when it crested a hill on Pacific Coast Highway going 120 miles per hour and slammed into a power pole.

The driver jumped out of the wreckage and ran into the canyon above, evading a three-hour search by a Los Angeles Sheriff's Department helicopter and a mountain search-and-rescue team.

The crash did not result in serious injuries. But it sent shockwaves through both the tabloid and exotic car worlds as one group wondered whether the driver was a celebrity -- and the other mourned the loss of a hand-built car revered by many as a work of art.

The car was certain to be owned by someone rich, if not famous. Actor Nicolas Cage owns one. And Malibu local Britney Spears has been chased in one by the paparazzi.

But by day's end the tabloids were disappointed to learn that the demolished car had been owned by a Swedish millionaire with no Screen Actor's Guild card.

Los Angeles County sheriff's investigators identified him as Stefan Eriksson, a Bel-Air resident. Officials are trying to determine whether he is the noted Swedish game designer who, perhaps not surprisingly, created car-racing themed video games.

One witness told deputies that the Ferrari appeared to be racing with a Mercedes SLR northbound along the coastal highway when the accident occurred around 6 a.m. west of Decker Canyon Road.

The crash left Ferrari fans anguished.

"I'm not surprised the driver ran away. He'd have been strangled by the owner," said Tex Oitto, a Santa Monica graphic artist who works on magazines for Ferrari owners.

"This will have a big impact on the local Ferrari community. This was not a car. It was a rolling art form."

Ferrari owner Chris Banning, a Beverly Hills writer who is finishing a book called the Mulholland Experience that will touch upon the cult of sports car racing on that mountain roadway, characterized the Enzo's destruction as "a tremendous loss" to the automotive world.

"He destroyed one of the finest cars on earth, maybe the finest. It's like taking a Van Gogh painting and burning it," said Banning, who is a leader of the Ferrari Owners Club.